Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Gopher hoops 2014 commit Gaston Diedhiou was denied admission to the U, and as such will not be a Gopher - at least not for the first semester of this year. Apparently he didn't speak/understand English well enough for the admissions department. This despite the fact that he was cleared by the NCAA, received a good score on his ACT in English, and "would be admitted to 95% of the Universities in the country" according to a source. Basically this is the higher ups at the University once again screwing over the basketball program (see: White, Royce).

Diedhiou is apparently still coming and is enrolled in the English Language program at the school with the hope that he will be admitted for the second semester and join the team then. Given that he's likely a bit of a project it may not really impact the team all that much since he's more important to the 2015 squad once Mo and Eliason are out of here, but it's still another reminder that the basketball team doesn't really mean jack to the powers that be. A little thing that, as has been pointed out in the comments of my prior post, is not an endearing quality to a coach who is destined to have suitors come calling every offseason. Let's hope this is simply a minor blip.

Of course, this also opens up a scholarship, although using it on another player if Diedhiou can get admitted for the second semester is a pretty big dick move. The whole thing seems a bit silly considering Diedhiou already speaks multiple languages so handling English shouldn't be an issue and likely he's on the team come January. If not, however - if he is unable to pass muster or decides to "F this shit" and enroll elsewhere another open scholarship isn't the worst thing in the world considering Pitino's hot start to the class of 2015. So either way we win. And we lose.